Some of my Favorite Women in the Movement to Take Back Childbirth:
I know the following women and their businesses personally and can highly recommend their work. The following entries are in alphabetical order as I could not put every one of them at the top of the list. In addition to this list, you will find many other resources when you access the Resources fly-out menu on the blue menu ribbon to your left.
Suzanne Arms has been a birth activist, teacher, author, photojournalist and international speaker for over 35 years. Her 2nd book, Immaculate Deception: A New Look At Women & Childbirth (1975), is considered by many to have ignited the “birth and midwifery revolution.”
Suzanne founded Birthing the Future (BTF) to inform, inspire and raise consciousness about natural, normal birth, breastfeeding, bonding, home birth, birthing centers and midwifery and to transform how we bring babies into the world and care for every mother- baby pair. BTF’s website offers a wealth of information on such topics as VBAC, doulas, epidurals, cesarean surgery, the politics and economics of birth and male circumcision. BTF offers a series of inspiring and informative products including beautifully designed bookmarks, cards, two brochures (on the mother-baby bond, and on birth trauma). In addition, the site has an extensive resource list.
Suzanne founded Birthing the Future (BTF) to inform, inspire and raise consciousness about natural, normal birth, breastfeeding, bonding, home birth, birthing centers and midwifery and to transform how we bring babies into the world and care for every mother- baby pair. BTF’s website offers a wealth of information on such topics as VBAC, doulas, epidurals, cesarean surgery, the politics and economics of birth and male circumcision. BTF offers a series of inspiring and informative products including beautifully designed bookmarks, cards, two brochures (on the mother-baby bond, and on birth trauma). In addition, the site has an extensive resource list.
Suzanne has also produced a much-loved midwife-centered educational film, Giving Birth, showing the difference between the medical-hospital and the midwife/ physiological model for birth.
Suzanne has created a DVD film series addressing Birth and the Primal Period (pre-conception to age one) from a wide variety of perspectives, weaving ancient wisdom, intuition and modern science to use in educating social service professionals, healers, students and prospective parents. Suzanne is a widely sought-after speaker/teacher and grassroots organizer and continues to train birth activists. Visit the BTF website at www.BirthingTheFuture.org. Phone: 970-946-6994.
Suzanne has created a DVD film series addressing Birth and the Primal Period (pre-conception to age one) from a wide variety of perspectives, weaving ancient wisdom, intuition and modern science to use in educating social service professionals, healers, students and prospective parents. Suzanne is a widely sought-after speaker/teacher and grassroots organizer and continues to train birth activists. Visit the BTF website at www.BirthingTheFuture.org. Phone: 970-946-6994.
Elizabeth Davis is a world-renowned expert on women’s issues who has been a midwife, women’s healthcare specialist, educator and consultant for over 30 years. She is internationally active in promoting motherbaby-centered birth and is widely sought after for her expertise in midwifery education and organizational development. She offers Heart and Hands Midwifery Intensives in the Bay area of California. This coursework is a prerequisite for a three-year midwifery training program with The National Midwifery Institute.
Elizabeth has authored several books, the best known of which is her now classic beginning midwifery text entitled Heart & Hands: A Midwife’s Guide to Pregnancy & Birth. She also wrote Orgasmic Birth: Your Guide to a Safe, Satisfying an Pleasurable Birth Experience, The Women’s Wheel of Life and The Rhythms of Women’s Desire: How Female Sexuality Unfolds at Every Stage of Life.
Her mission is to help women embrace an integrated view of birth, sexuality, family and ecology. She travels widely, lecturing and presenting workshops on women’s health, sexuality, intuition, and midwifery. She can design a workshop or keynote to meet your group’s needs—references on request. For information on workshops, lectures, video and other presentations for your group, visit her website at www.elizabethdavis.com.
Robbie Davis-Floyd is an internationally recognized anthropologist who has spent the majority of her career studying, writing and teaching about birth in the Western world and the development of recent historical trends among midwives in North America and around the world. She has authored and co-authored many books on various aspects of childbirth, midwifery care and medical care in general from an anthropological point-of-view. Her website can be found at www.Davis-Floyd.com.
- Hermine Hayes-Klein is a mother, a lawyer and a passionate advocate for human rights related to childbirth. These rights include the right of women to be able to make meaningful choices to consent to as well as refuse care; the rights of midwives to practice; the rights of women to have access to real place-of-birth and provider options; and the rights of babies to be treated as sensitive and sentient beings. She is a full-time attorney advocating for childbearing families and midwives. You can find out more about her practice by visiting her website at HayesKleinLaw.com.
Penny Simkin is a physical therapist who has specialized in serving birthing families since 1968. She is an internationally recognized childbirth educator, doula, speaker and author. Along with Ruth Ancheta, she co-authored the indispensable manual entitled The Labor Progress Handbook (2011), which is a goldmine of information and one of the best things you can carry to a birth. Her other books include The Birth Partner (2013), and When Survivors Give Birth: Understanding and Healing the Effects of Early Sexual Abuse of Childbearing Women (2004), with Phyllis Klaus, and Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Newborn: The Complete Guide, with 4 co-authors (2010). Penny has also produced several birth-related films, including Comfort Measures for Childbirth and her latest, There’s a Baby! -- A Children’s Film About a New Baby. Currently her practice consists of childbirth education, birth counseling, and labor support, combined with a busy schedule of courses, conferences and workshops. Her website can be found at www.pennysimkin.com, where many of her papers, class handouts, and PowerPoint presentations area available for download.
Nekole Shapiro combines a lifetime of hands-on body work experience with her Columbia University pre-medical and cultural anthropology studies. She is a second-generation grassroots organizer, educator and bodyworker. Nekole finds some of her greatest personal growth has been through her 20 year relationship with her husband and through consciously parenting two powerhouse daughters.
Nekole has developed two training courses. Her first curriculum, EmbodiedBirth quickly brought her into the center of those altering the current culture of birth. She’s been published in SQUAT, ICEA, BOLD and Orgasmic Birth. She has shared the stage with such luminaries as Dr. Northrup, Ina May Gaskin, Henci Goer and Penny Simkin.
Her other endeavor is her Holistic Peer Counseling (HPC) curriculum which supports Birth Workers as well as parents in recovering more of themselves through the amazing work of birthing new families. It addresses supporting those recovering both from primary and secondary trauma. Of course, all of this serves to support the next generation. HPC has proven so successful that it has branched out internationally.
Nekole is busy inspiring change with every breath. One small warning....She has been known to change lives.
Nekole has developed two training courses. Her first curriculum, EmbodiedBirth quickly brought her into the center of those altering the current culture of birth. She’s been published in SQUAT, ICEA, BOLD and Orgasmic Birth. She has shared the stage with such luminaries as Dr. Northrup, Ina May Gaskin, Henci Goer and Penny Simkin.
Her other endeavor is her Holistic Peer Counseling (HPC) curriculum which supports Birth Workers as well as parents in recovering more of themselves through the amazing work of birthing new families. It addresses supporting those recovering both from primary and secondary trauma. Of course, all of this serves to support the next generation. HPC has proven so successful that it has branched out internationally.
Nekole is busy inspiring change with every breath. One small warning....She has been known to change lives.
Karen Strange worked in a supervisory capacity training midwives at Maternidad La Luz in El Paso TX. She is one of the very few homebirth-based NRP teachers in the US. Her classes on neonatal resuscitation encompass a midwifery-model of care and a physiologic approach to stabilizing newborns while allowing a gentle transition with a focus on the baby's experience. Her classes go far beyond basic NRP as taught in the United States by incorporating theories, skills and techniques that have been recognized internationally as important components of the process. Find out about upcoming workshops by visiting her website at karenstrange.com.
Nancy Sullivan has been a certified nurse-midwife since 1983. She holds a BA and an MA in English literature. She received her nursing degree at Cornell and her midwifery education at Columbia University. Nancy is a fellow of the American College of Nurse-Midwives, and served two terms on the ACNM Board of Directors. In 2001, she retired from the faculty in the nurse-midwifery education program at Oregon Health & Sciences University in Portland, Oregon. She developed a clinic for women with pelvic floor disorders, managed the postpartum and breastfeeding clinic, and worked at the Maternal Care Clinic providing prenatal care for Providence Health System in Portland, retiring in December 2011. Her daughter, Megan, graduated from the midwifery program at OHSU and is practicing midwifery in Portland. Nancy is also active in the local effort bring universal healthcare to Oregon. Here we see her in that capacity.
For the past four years, Nancy has taken several trips to rural Nepal with One Heart World-wide to work with Nepali nurse trainers teaching community health nurses to be Skilled Birth Attendants.
Nancy is the founder and editor of MidwifeInsight.com. Its mission is to disseminate information and provide resources to midwives, aspiring midwives, midwifery students and midwifery consumers; to provide a forum for dialogue and strengthening of ties among all midwives; to increase visibility of the midwifery profession; and to inform the public about the excellent outcomes associated with midwifery care.
MidwifeInsight includes in-depth articles about maternity care as well as short news items taken from the media and professional journals, always with citations and links to the original sources. Content is written from the perspective that pregnancy and birth are natural, physiological events and, in most cases, need to be nurtured and not managed. Information about pregnancy, birth, and newborn complications is included since they do occur in some circumstances and need to be recognized and treated. Visit Nancy's website: midwifeinsight.com.
For the past four years, Nancy has taken several trips to rural Nepal with One Heart World-wide to work with Nepali nurse trainers teaching community health nurses to be Skilled Birth Attendants.
Nancy is the founder and editor of MidwifeInsight.com. Its mission is to disseminate information and provide resources to midwives, aspiring midwives, midwifery students and midwifery consumers; to provide a forum for dialogue and strengthening of ties among all midwives; to increase visibility of the midwifery profession; and to inform the public about the excellent outcomes associated with midwifery care.
MidwifeInsight includes in-depth articles about maternity care as well as short news items taken from the media and professional journals, always with citations and links to the original sources. Content is written from the perspective that pregnancy and birth are natural, physiological events and, in most cases, need to be nurtured and not managed. Information about pregnancy, birth, and newborn complications is included since they do occur in some circumstances and need to be recognized and treated. Visit Nancy's website: midwifeinsight.com.
Gail Tully, midwife, author and teacher, has much to share at her website: www.spinningbabies.com. Starting with the simple, creative concepts in her most widely known work to date, The Belly Mapping Book, pregnant women, doulas and other childbirth professionals can become more aware of the baby's position without needing palpation skills.
Once the fetal position is determined, Gail's Spinning Babies concepts help to reduce the rates of cesareans and other birth interventions with practical techniques for physiological birth. Useful for parents as well as professionals, Spinning Babies addresses the effect of fetal positioning on labor progress and includes much valuable information such as how to flip a breech or transverse baby to head down; how to turn a baby from posterior to anterior; and how to help a baby engage for a shorter labor. Gail's insights into the cause and prevention of shoulder dystocia and other sorts of labor dystocias are indispensable tools for your birthbag. She is an excellent educator and is available for teaching engagements in your area. She has been a featured instructor at Midwifery Today conferences.
Once the fetal position is determined, Gail's Spinning Babies concepts help to reduce the rates of cesareans and other birth interventions with practical techniques for physiological birth. Useful for parents as well as professionals, Spinning Babies addresses the effect of fetal positioning on labor progress and includes much valuable information such as how to flip a breech or transverse baby to head down; how to turn a baby from posterior to anterior; and how to help a baby engage for a shorter labor. Gail's insights into the cause and prevention of shoulder dystocia and other sorts of labor dystocias are indispensable tools for your birthbag. She is an excellent educator and is available for teaching engagements in your area. She has been a featured instructor at Midwifery Today conferences.
Www.sarawickham.com is the website and blog of Sara Wickham, a British midwife, author, speaker and researcher. Sara has lived and worked in the UK, the US and New Zealand and practiced midwifery in a variety of settings before also getting involved in education, speaking, publishing and research. As a researcher and thinker, her interests are diverse. Previous research topics include anti-D (Rhogam), Vitamin K, physiological placental birth and so-called post-term pregnancy, which was the subject of her PhD research. Sara’s website offers free access to many of the articles that she has published in midwifery and birth-related journals, as well as details of her books, speaking engagements and workshops. It is also the site of her popular and regularly-updated blog, in which she shares current midwifery thinking, research studies of interest, the latest uploads to her own site and birth-related resources.
ADDITIONAL INDIVIDUALS OF INTEREST TO BIRTH PROFESSIONALS:
Faith Gibson is a community midwife in California and the "webwife" for the Good News Network. See details of the site under organizations. Her site can be reached at www.faithgibson.org.
Sheila Kitzinger, a treasure we lost to cancer in 2015, was an internationally renown childbirth educator, speaker and author. Visit her website at www.sheilakitzinger.com.
Faith Gibson is a community midwife in California and the "webwife" for the Good News Network. See details of the site under organizations. Her site can be reached at www.faithgibson.org.
Sheila Kitzinger, a treasure we lost to cancer in 2015, was an internationally renown childbirth educator, speaker and author. Visit her website at www.sheilakitzinger.com.
The listing of additional resources in the remaining resource pages are included for your convenience and should not necessarily be construed as an official endorsement of the listing or the products, educational offerings, views or opinions expressed in their offerings by Matrix Midwifery Enterprises, Labrys Press or Anne Frye. It is understood by you when you access these links that this information is provided as a courtesy. Use your own judgement and discretion when investigating any unfamiliar product or service.
If you know of a person, product or informative website that you think should be found in my resources section, please write and let me know. Include a brief description of the organization, publication, educational offering, product or service as well as a website link and a phone number. Images can be submitted and will be considered on a case-by-case basis for inclusion.
If you know of a person, product or informative website that you think should be found in my resources section, please write and let me know. Include a brief description of the organization, publication, educational offering, product or service as well as a website link and a phone number. Images can be submitted and will be considered on a case-by-case basis for inclusion.
